It’s not every day I get to spend my work time discussing the Whisky (or Whiskey!) and spirits industry, but today we sit down with Rob Hollands, CEO of Metacask to talk about just that!
Metacask are on a mission to digitise the whisky and spirits industry as well as offering a marketplace for buyers and sellers to trade spirits. But this is an industry with product that can often be 100, or even 200, years old and with age comes ever increasing value, so provenance is everything and building in authenticity is the challenge that Rob and his team face.
Metacask create an NFT each time a bottle is authenticated, and from then on the NFT can be sold with the bottle to create added value and traceability in the future. And with NFTs, distilleries are able to create added value – Rob gives an example of a limited edition with specially commissioned artwork on the bottles, and the purchasers will get to own the NFT of this artwork.
It might take 20 or 30 years to put Whisky being laid down in casks today to the market and it’s fascinating to see how operating in the digital world can work hand in hand with such a traditional industry.
In our video interview with Rob you’ll find:
- 00:00 Introducing the Metacask marketplace & spirits industry
- 02:05 Who are the buyers and sellers on Metacask?
- 03:42 How the spirits industry is being digitised
- 07:59 Traceability from raw ingredients to final bottled product
- 09:32 NFT usage for provenance in the spirits industry
- 12:53 How NFTs give added value to physical product
- 14:27 What’s next for Metacask?
